Shine Company 4980N 4 Ft. Cedar Wood Garden Bridge with Side Rails, Natural

Instructions are vague regarding board spacing. Instructions say "space evenly". How about a measurement, inches or millimeters. I used a 3/16 inch drill bit for spacing. Not perfect, but good enough. Used MinWax Red Oak #215 stain prior to assembly. No finish coat. By the way, the gnome and fish are from Amazon. I'm happy enough with the finished product to go 5 stars. Although, the instructions could drop it to 4.

Overall a decent product for the price. I had to make some modifications to suit my needs. As others have mentioned, you should use wood glue during assembly to avoid creaks and things loosening up over time. I also had to instal some of the slats upside down because of the way they were curved - not an issue as the wood is soft enough for the screws to countersink on the back side as well (or it would be easy to bore some pilot holes as needed).I mainly needed this mini-bridge for the winter fat biking trail I like to build in my yard. There is a swale / small creek through the back of the property that almost never freezes, and that’s where I tend to sink and make a mess. I often hit this spot at speed and it’s in a slight turn as well. Because of that, I could not have the railings installed as I would most likely crash through them. The way the bridge is designed, the railing providing some structural support to the deck by reinforcing the outer two spans. It also means that crashing through the railings would most likely destroy the bridge completely by ripping the outer spans that are made of two pieces bolted together. To reinforce all 3 support spans, I installed some leftover lumber on the underside in a letter H pattern as seen in my photos. The hardware was more than long enough to do that. With this reinforcement, and glue on all contact surfaces, the bridge is rock solid and I have no issues hitting it at speed on the fat bike and bouncing the back tire off it for hours on end. For my application, you would definitely need to reinforce this bridge, as it’s not meant to be used with no railings and/or to withstand the dynamic loads of a bicycle at speed. Overall I am happy with it; it serves its purpose with the minor upgrades I made. I intend to seal it when the weather gets warmer and hope to get many years of use out of it.

Very cute and just what we were looking for.

Love this little bridge, fairly easy to put together, 1st order missing parts and returned. Replaced no problem. I stained it this summer to keep it looking good.

I put it together in about 1 1/2 hours. Very easy. It is pretty sturdy. I was able to walk on it and it was stable. Looks great over our pond in our front yard.